Edward Snowden

President Barack Obama has called for an end to the bulk collection by the National Security Agency of cellphone data from hundreds of millions of Americans and requiring intelligence agencies to get a secretive court’s permission before accessing the records.

Government lawyers are asking the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington to overturn a federal judge’s ruling that threatens the National Security Agency’s practice of collecting every Americans’ telephone records every day.

In a debate over the future of U.S. government surveillance and the National Security Agency, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., called leaker Edward Snowden a “defector and a traitor,” and said that such metadata in 2001 could likely have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Senior Israeli officials on Sunday demanded an end to U.S. spying on Israel, following revelations that the National Security Agency intercepted emails from the offices of the country’s top former leaders.

During his end-of-the-year press conference, President Barack Obama fielded several questions regarding the scandal surrounding the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ telephone records.